


This arm beneath your head

by myhappyface



Category: Angel: the Series, Torchwood
Genre: Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-13
Updated: 2010-09-13
Packaged: 2017-10-11 17:44:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/114984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myhappyface/pseuds/myhappyface
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack Harkness meets a fellow lost soul.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This arm beneath your head

**Author's Note:**

> Set prior to "Are You Now or Have You Ever Been" (AtS) and after "The Parting of the Ways" ( _Who_ ). Beta by Kita.

The second time Jack Harkness winds up in 1950s California, he doesn't get arrested, which is an immediate improval upon his last visit.

For your own reference: any side of Joe McCarthy is the wrong one.

The second time is after the Blitz and a girl hanging from a ballon, after his Doctor leaves him for dead on a satellite in the future surrounded by the dust of impossible monsters and bodies of unmourned contestants. It's after he has died seven times (Dalek ray to the chest; suffocation; suffocation; starvation; execution by gunshot to the head; hanging; swift and unstoppable collision with an unmovable object, namely pavement), fought in two wars for a planet that is more than likely doomed anyway, and had his favorite greatcoat stolen.

This is how he comes to be in California for the second time: by accident. He's thinking of a friend with a warm house and a warmer bed; he is so focused on this destination that he does not remember his friend has not yet been born.

He is left to more common accommodations. Jack has sent men to their deaths for a cause he knows to be futile. Charming a gratis suite out of a greedy hotelier is nothing.

*

He doesn't stop to consider how eager the manager is to be rid of this particular suite, but on his way upstairs, he smiles his way into acquaintanceship with a group of people who think they know what's going on. They tell him he's been had. They tell him he's living next to and across from a bunch of freaks.

For all their insinuating whispers, they don't seem to know much. It doesn't bother him. Freaks he can handle. It's practically on his business card.

*

The first night, he brings himself off thinking of the Doctor's strong hands and Rose's soft smile, tongue between her teeth. He has never felt so achingly alone after an orgasm before.

*

He meets 217 a few nights after he moves in. It's not the beginning of a beautiful friendship. They share a cigarette on the hotel's veranda; Jack doesn't smoke, but it's not like he's going to die of lung cancer, and even if he does, it's almost worth it to watch Angel's long, graceful fingers curl around his own as he lights the cigarette.

Jack waits until he's known Angel for twenty minutes instead of ten to ask if he's an alien. He's heard of caution. Angel's a dour bastard, he's figured out, but his facial muscles haven't atrophied entirely, because he almost smiles.

 _Something worse,_ Angel tells him. _You might be surprised,_ Jack says. When Angel bares his teeth later, in the privacy of his rooms, Jack doesn't flinch.

*

They're on the bed. Angel is fighting the need to press his face to Jack's neck, old habits die hard, settles instead for rubbing his face against the tall column of Jack's spine. But Jack knows what he wants. Knows what he is, more importantly. _I can't die,_ he says. Angel, _What?,_ thrusting, clutching at bruised hips. Wanting to gasp for breath he doesn't need. _You can't kill me. I'm immortal. Do it._

And Angel has been so hungry for so long, fucking _starving_ \-- he bites down, the old rhythms of feeding and fucking relearned as quickly as if he had never made himself forget them. Jack shudders beneath him. He has been a stranger in his own body for decades, and he has almost forgotten what it feels like to have every inch of skin and pound of flesh clench and stretch in time with someone else's.

He reaches a hand back to hold Angel to his neck, but Angel pushes it back down to the bed, message clear: _stay put_. Angel spares a hand to wrap around him, and the sight of those pale fingers, flush with stolen blood, wrapped around his sex finishes him. He comes gasping, so hard he forgets his own true name.

*

On the bed, still, and Angel is nursing at the wound on Jack's neck. He moves to kiss Jack, almost chastely, but the kiss turns quickly passionate, and Jack can taste his own blood on Angel's tongue. It shouldn't be as hot as it is, but he's not really one to question pleasure. His legs circle Angel's waist, and they couple again, his fingers rending the bedsheets as he rides out his orgasm.

 _Fuck_ , Angel says. Speculatively. Jack smiles, quick easy and bright. _I get that a lot._

*

A young woman struggles into the hotel under the weight of two large suitcases. She's pretty enough, but her fine features are marred by one emotion Jack will always recognize: fear. He's ready to step up, lend a hand, but she charms the bellhop with her indecision, and is quickly escorted to the newly-vacated suite.

He walks out into the soft light of the early morning. His body bears no marks from his time in the Hyperion. He does not look back.


End file.
